


Blaze of Glory: The Story of Neetbark Flac's Final Concert

by CorundumBleu



Category: Original Work, The Webcomics Review
Genre: Bank Robbery, Crack, Crime Scenes, Gen, I wrote this extremely quickly, Musicians, Rock and Roll, Touring, Wassy Wapose, Writing Exercise, written by Ruby
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-30
Updated: 2020-08-30
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:22:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,697
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26203384
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CorundumBleu/pseuds/CorundumBleu
Summary: An aging rockstar embarks on a crime-laden tour to go down in history.
Relationships: Rockstar/Fame and Glory
Kudos: 9





	Blaze of Glory: The Story of Neetbark Flac's Final Concert

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for the Webcomics Review Write a Story You Worthless Piece of Shit Weekend Jamboree in the span of about two hours. Quality not guaranteed.
> 
> Prompt: A washed-up aging rock star, terrified that the glory days are past, sets out to have one last tour, one that will go down in history.

It was going to be a tour to remember--Neetbark Flac was going to make sure of that. He would show them once more what it truly meant to be a Rock Star. The world wouldn’t forget him, he wouldn’t _let_ them. You wouldn’t think it would be so easy to forget four chart-topping singles, seven Grammys nominations (no wins, regretfully), multiple revolutions in rocker fashion, or the 1987 world tour who’s final performance had drawn so many attendees that their collective weight had collapsed part of the stadium. 

Of course, that’s when it had all started to go wrong. _Liability issues_ , they said. _Irresponsible ticket sales_ , others whispered. _Gonna get sued,_ sniggered the lawyers. Bah, as if that mattered, Flac had thought at the time. All press was good press, and he could ride that wave forever, or so he thought.

Unfortunately the public has always had a short memory for greatness. First it was the lawsuits, which ate up the money from those first lucrative albums. Then 90s grunge happened, and the grit-drunk audiences didn’t have nearly as much patience for the old school flash and glam of rock. The killing blow had been the pretty-boy bands of the 2000s (not that they made _real_ music anyway.) Now Flac found himself staring down 20 years of modest retirement on what was left of his fortune, put out to pasture and relegated to the halls every growing obscurity. He didn’t like the look of it at all.

That is when he’d had the idea. One last tour. Bigger and badder than ever before.

Oh sure, his manager had objected. _Strenuously._ “Leave it to me, Suzy D.,” he’d told her breezily. “We’re going down in history. Think blaze of glory!” 

She glared at him. 

“Oh come on,” he said. “Sure, it didn’t end well for Bonnie and Clyde but no one shot their _manager_.” 

She sighed and put their lawyer on speed dial.

It took a few months to straighten out all the details. The few remaining band members (none of them original mates from the glory days) had threatened to walk until he promised to work up appropriate alibis for them. It took a while to find a stage crew with proper pyrotechnic experience. They sent out bribes to the first wave of local law enforcement. Then slowly, carefully, they turned the wheel of the rumor mill with a whisper campaign: Neetbark Flac was back with the most _underground_ of underground concert tours.

The tour opened on a sunny afternoon in a public park in Philadelphia. (Naturally, they hadn’t purchased a permit to perform there, that’s what the bribes were for.) There had been no posters, no ticket sales, no desperate appearances on late night talk shows begging for the old fans to care again, but somehow the word had gotten out that this concert was going to be different. Three thousand curious faces looked up at Flac and his band as he stood atop the playground kiddie slide and strummed the opening notes of “Look at Where We Used to Be (And Fuck That Shit)”. Then he turned around and began to walk away.

The crowd followed curiously. The song finished a few blocks away as they approached a Bank of America branch, prompting a smattering of polite applause. Flac took a deep breath. After this there would be no turning back. 

He nodded to the band and pressed a button on the side of his guitar. The barrel of a gun popped out of the neck of this guitar as he strode confidently through the glass doors of the bank. Behind him, the band launched into the explosive opening of “Brand New Day (Let’s Fuck it Up)”.

“THIS IS A ROBBERY/GIVE ME ALL YOUR CASH!” Flac bellowed the opening lines of the song, shooting his guitar-gun on beat with the drums.

For a moment, the interior of the bank was suspended in stillness as every brain in the room tried to wrap themselves around what the fuck was going on. Then chaos broke out. Customers screamed. The audience cheered. Flac grinned, slamming a chord and causing bullets to spray from the neck of his guitar into the air. _This_ is what rock ‘n roll was all about!

Flac and his bandmates walked out of the concert with $350,000 in cash and the eyes of the world on them. Fortunately, the bribes did their job and gave him just enough time to keep one step ahead of law enforcement. By the time they showed up with handcuffs, Flac and his team were halfway to London.

Each gig followed the same pattern--whisper campaign, play some songs, commit some crimes, high-tail it to the next city before the police could show up. News of the shows traveled purely by word of mouth, and each set was the stuff of legends. 

In England they burned down the London Eye to the tune of “All My Problems Can Be Solved With Fire (Even You)”. In New York they kidnapped the president of the United Nations and forced him to karaoke to “Wish I Was Anywhere But Here (Too Bad)”. In Sydney they descended up on a business conference and set loose four thousand wild animals on the unsuspecting CEOs while crooning the words of “Why You Gotta Be So Emu-tional”. 

The events got bigger, and so did the crowds. He took a quick jaunt back to the States to perform in front of Mount Rushmore while explosions reshaped the presidents’ faces into those of him and his band mates. In Japan, Flac and his fans commandeered a high speed bullet train. For several weeks he played a continuous concert on a cargo ship-turned privateering vessel while his fans pillaged the high seas. Always sensational. Always one step ahead of the law. 

His momentum seemed unstoppable. The press called him crazy, the fans called him brilliant, the police called his lawyer. Still, Flac knew it couldn’t last forever. In San Francisco a police unit had almost caught up to him as his team held up traffic performing a set in the middle of the Golden Gate Bridge. It had turned out okay that time: Flac had jumped atop a semi truck and continued to perform as his bassist held a gun to the driver’s head and told him to step on it. Most of the crowd ended up stealing cars from the stalled commuters and the concert continued for the next four hours as the police pursued him and his fans in a high speed car chase. 

All the same, Flac knew time was running short. It was time for one final concert, back where it all started: Hollywood. The birthplace of spectacle. Rumors flew that this would be Neetbark Flac’s biggest gig yet. When the evening came, nearly four million people showed up from the most distant corners of the world. They assembled silently on the hillsides at sunset, the Hollywood sign gazing over them as the lights of Los Angeles twinkled below them. Anticipation hung in the air.

Distant sirens echoed from afar. The crowd gasped as a battalion of police cars crested a distant hill--they were here before Flac had even arrived! But no, there was the man himself, standing on the back of flatbed truck just in front of the armored police vehicles, slamming his guitar and triumphantly singing his newest single, “Blaze of Glory (Story of How I Died)”. His final single.

As the truck mounted the hill closest to the audience, showers of flame blossomed from the ground behind him. The police cars swerved to get out of the way, executing an elaborate dance that looked almost choreographed. Fireworks rained from the sky. The truck barrelled off the road, straight for the Hollywood sign, which had caught fire from the pyrotechnic display just moments earlier. Mere yards away, the driver slammed on the breaks and Flac flew through the air, executed a perfect flip, and landed feet first on the H, playing all the while. The audience held its breath as the H wobbled, then tipped forward and began to slide down the hill, Flac riding it like a flaming avalanche of rock and roll and glory. The crowd roared in approval and barreled down the hill after him.

Flac was gathering speed, practically flying towards the ravine at the bottom of the hill. The police cars had regrouped and were pursuing, and another unit had arranged themselves at a road along the edge of the canyon, ready to intercept Flac when he reached the bottom. There would be no escape this time. The music crescendoed.

Flac launched into the final chorus as the ravine below him erupted into flame, eliciting startled shouts from the officers beside it as they scrambled to get out of the way. But Flac didn’t slow down--at this point there was no way he could stop even if he wanted to. 

“YOU WON’T FORGET ME/YOU COULDN’T IF YOU TRIED,” he bellowed over the screams, the drums, and the sirens. 

“I’M GOING OUT IN A BLAZE OF GLORY!” The flaming H was feet from the ravine. It shot into the air and hung there for a moment, suspended in time.

“AT LEAST I CHOSE HOW I DIED.” The H plummeted down, out of sight. The crowd screamed and surged toward the edge of the canyon as the music faded away. The bottom was an inferno and no sign of Flac could be seen. 

For a moment, the only sound was the crackle of flames as the shock settled in. Even the police turned off their sirens in respect. Then, from the back of the crowd, a voice piped up.

“We won’t forget him!” A young teen had picked up the tune of the chorus. “We couldn’t if we tried!” A few more voices joined in. “HE WENT OUT IN A BLAZE OF GLORY!” The song rippled across the crowd, singing the final words of Neetbark Flac with one voice. 

He was right. They wouldn’t forget him. He had given his life for rock ‘n roll, and they would make sure it was worth it.


End file.
